So Fran, going to be intellectually honest and concede your defeat re: the debate-thread you left hanging?

I have no problem debating Kcrady and Anfauglir... but not in this forum... never again. I couldn't even say anything during the beginning stages of the debate with them, without the moderators in here getting in the way. And that was in the beginning stages. Can you imagine what it would have been like further on down the line? It would have been impossible. Nope, that's not for me. All I wanted was a drama free debate with Kcrady and Anfauglir.

But when I saw that things were degenerating into a circus, I just threw up my hands and walked away. I'm not on here to play games. This is my first time back.

If either Kcrady or Anfauglir would like to debate in private email, I have no problems with that. But I will never again allow the moderators in here to twist things into a sideshow.

I have no problem debating Kcrady and Anfauglir... but not in this forum... never again. I couldn't even say anything during the beginning stages of the debate with them, without the moderators in here getting in the way. And that was in the beginning stages. Can you imagine what it would have been like further on down the line? It would have been impossible. Nope, that's not for me. All I wanted was a drama free debate with Kcrady and Anfauglir.

But when I saw that things were degenerating into a circus, I just threw up my hands and walked away. I'm not on here to play games.

Hmm. A touch disingenuous, perhaps. Those who were not involved in that thread may be interested in some of the "circus" that went on.

1) Fran posed 3 questions to me, which he claimed were so important he could not continue the debate until I had answered them. I answered them in a seperate thread - and Fran at no point gave any response. 2) Fran called my honesty into question, refusing to debate for several weeks. Only when faced with increased pressure to provide the evidence for his allegations did he concede they were without substance.3) Fran admitted on several occasions that he had no ideas of his own; was not capable of constructing his own argument; and the reason for his delays in responding were while he searched through the books of another person to find answers that best fitted the questions I was asking.

For those reasons, I withdrew from the debate. I felt that I was NOT debating Fran - that if I asked a question that Fran could not find in his books I would get no response (or worse, a response that did not address the question). I had answered every additional question Fran was posing me, but was getting no answers to mine - or answers that were not answers (on the last point I raised, I asked a specific question to determine Fran's position. The response was, effectively "it's this if you say this, and that if you say that".) For all those reasons, I concluded that I would not get an effective response from Fran, and that there was therefore no point in continuing the debate. It's also for those reasons that I will not be having any discussion swith Fran by email or PM.

I'm prepared to concede that Fran was only unable or unwilling to engage without diversion, evasion, or sidetrack on that subject alone (I've not even mentioned the "wall of text" issues). I'm confident that Fran will be able to debate in a straightforward and open manner in this thread, answering questions in a simple and direct manner. In that hope, I look forward to his response to the question I posed just above Bam's post.

In other words, you wanted a debate in which you were not held to any sort of standard of conduct. A free-for-all, as it were.

It's sad that you couldn't hold up in a reasoned, formal debate.

this response is a non sequitur because it doesn't logically follow from what I wrote. There is no way that you can logically infer from my response to mean that I wanted a debate where no sort of standard of conducted existed. This response of yours is simply unfounded.

Not only that... but the debate never got off the ground. Kcrady and I never even started any debate. We were still in the "negotiating" stage... so there was NO "reasoned, formal debate" to begin with. So this another non-sequitur of yours.

As for Anfauglir... I left BEFORE I even read any response he might have made to my opening rebuttel. I don't even know if he ever responded. Yesterday I went back out of curiousity and saw that the debates have been deleted.

So there was NO ""reasoned, formal debate" in either case. You obviously was not following what was happening.

Why are you guys trying to debate fran? He got called on his BS and ran. Now he comes slinking back. Fran has rightly earned his ridicule.

You have your facts wrong. What BS was I called on? The debate had NEVER even started yet. So what debate are you even refering to? Or weren't you following what was going on?

As for being ridiculed? I don't care at all. The Bible says that Christians will be ridiculed by atheists and non-believers because of Jesus. Christians expect to be ridiculed. We are warned. And yet we don't mind because it's a privilege to be counted with Christ.

No... the debate never got off the ground NOT because of any ridicule... but because there was no opportunity for any good debate with the moderators' actions.

If I did "run".. .then why would I be willing to debate them in private email? Or better yet... if they can think of a another forum or blog or website in which we can debate without the same intrusion by the moderators in here, then i'm all for it.

As for Anfauglir... I left BEFORE I even read any response he might have made to my opening rebuttel. I don't even know if he ever responded. Yesterday I went back out of curiousity and saw that the debates have been deleted.

So there was NO ""reasoned, formal debate" in either case. You obviously was not following what was happening.

Oh dear....caught in a lie again, Fran!

I presume your "opening rebuttal" was the one on Feb 17th, where you raised Fermi's paradox and (once again) started talking about alien abductions. THE NEXT DAY, I asked you to clarify whether you were saying alien encounters and abductions really happened or not. You responded to that by saying

"I was saying that there is no evidence for the kinds of aliens you need for your hypothesis to work.... BUT, if you were to respond that you do have evidence that they exist, then I wanted you to consider some other things in your response." In other words, refusing to answer my question.

So let's take it in order...

I left BEFORE I even read any response he might have made to my opening rebuttel. LIE - you posted several times in the 2 days following your formal rebuttal.

I don't even know if he ever responded. LIE - as I have noted above, you saw my response for clarification, and responded to it - albeit without actually clarifying.

Fran, maybe your memory and cognitive powers ARE as poor as you claimed when you claimed you could not understand the circumstances behind your challenging of my honesty. Because to come back here and post 3 whoppers like the above either mean you are one step short of Alzheimers....or you are just a pathological liar.

I had been prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, a different thread - but it appears that you want to use the same distortion of truth and sidesteps as you did last time.

And, but the way, it doesn't matter if you are engaging in a formal debate or just "to answer some questions (you) found interesting and important" - the standards of honesty and directness still apply.

As for Anfauglir... I left BEFORE I even read any response he might have made to my opening rebuttel. I don't even know if he ever responded. Yesterday I went back out of curiousity and saw that the debates have been deleted.

So there was NO ""reasoned, formal debate" in either case. You obviously was not following what was happening.

Oh dear....caught in a lie again, Fran!

I presume your "opening rebuttal" was the one on Feb 17th, where you raised Fermi's paradox and (once again) started talking about alien abductions. THE NEXT DAY, I asked you to clarify whether you were saying alien encounters and abductions really happened or not. You responded to that by saying

"I was saying that there is no evidence for the kinds of aliens you need for your hypothesis to work.... BUT, if you were to respond that you do have evidence that they exist, then I wanted you to consider some other things in your response." In other words, refusing to answer my question.

So let's take it in order...

I left BEFORE I even read any response he might have made to my opening rebuttel. LIE - you posted several times in the 2 days following your formal rebuttal.

I don't even know if he ever responded. LIE - as I have noted above, you saw my response for clarification, and responded to it - albeit without actually clarifying.

Fran, maybe your memory and cognitive powers ARE as poor as you claimed when you claimed you could not understand the circumstances behind your challenging of my honesty. Because to come back here and post 3 whoppers like the above either mean you are one step short of Alzheimers....or you are just a pathological liar.

I had been prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, a different thread - but it appears that you want to use the same distortion of truth and sidesteps as you did last time.

And, but the way, it doesn't matter if you are engaging in a formal debate or just "to answer some questions (you) found interesting and important" - the standards of honesty and directness still apply.

You obiously don't know what the word "lie" means.

The debates section is deleted. Is it not? Weren't we having a debate in one of the debate rooms? Well, I went back there yesterday, and I don't see either your response to my first rebuttal or the negotiating that was going on between Kcrady and myself.

Am I wrong here?

I still have no idea what response, if any, you might have made to my first rebuttel. In fact, I can't even FIND my first rebuttal to you at all.

The debates section is deleted. Is it not? Weren't we having a debate in one of the debate rooms? Well, I went back there yesterday, and I don't see either your response to my first rebuttal or the negotiating that was going on between Kcrady and myself.

I posted a link to the deabte. Are you saying our posts are not in there?

We observe that the life of Jesus differs substantially from typical alien accounts. ((cut))

Hence my confusion - you seem to be saying something along the lines of:

"Aliens don't exist! There's no evidence at all! And in any case, every time aliens appear they are mean and nasty!"

I can't tell whether you are granting the existence of aliens or not...which makes it rather difficult to argue with you! Can you clarify, please, whether your argument is:

(a) Aliens do NOT exist, there is no evidence for them.(b) Aliens DO exist, the evidence proves them to be mean and nasty and fear-causing.

Hello Anfauglir...

Glad to try and clarify. I have no idea how you would respond... so in trying to anticipate how you would respond... I wanted you to consider some things if you did try and substantiate that aliens existed.

So essentially... I was saying that there is no evidence for the kinds of aliens you need for your hypothesis to work.... BUT, if you were to respond that you do have evidence that they exist, then I wanted you to consider some other things in your response.

I have no problem debating Kcrady and Anfauglir... but not in this forum... never again. I couldn't even say anything during the beginning stages of the debate with them, without the moderators in here getting in the way. And that was in the beginning stages. Can you imagine what it would have been like further on down the line? It would have been impossible. Nope, that's not for me. All I wanted was a drama free debate with Kcrady and Anfauglir.

But when I saw that things were degenerating into a circus, I just threw up my hands and walked away. I'm not on here to play games.

Hmm. A touch disingenuous, perhaps. Those who were not involved in that thread may be interested in some of the "circus" that went on.

1) Fran posed 3 questions to me, which he claimed were so important he could not continue the debate until I had answered them. I answered them in a seperate thread - and Fran at no point gave any response. 2) Fran called my honesty into question, refusing to debate for several weeks. Only when faced with increased pressure to provide the evidence for his allegations did he concede they were without substance.3) Fran admitted on several occasions that he had no ideas of his own; was not capable of constructing his own argument; and the reason for his delays in responding were while he searched through the books of another person to find answers that best fitted the questions I was asking.

For those reasons, I withdrew from the debate. I felt that I was NOT debating Fran - that if I asked a question that Fran could not find in his books I would get no response (or worse, a response that did not address the question). I had answered every additional question Fran was posing me, but was getting no answers to mine - or answers that were not answers (on the last point I raised, I asked a specific question to determine Fran's position. The response was, effectively "it's this if you say this, and that if you say that".) For all those reasons, I concluded that I would not get an effective response from Fran, and that there was therefore no point in continuing the debate. It's also for those reasons that I will not be having any discussion swith Fran by email or PM.

I'm prepared to concede that Fran was only unable or unwilling to engage without diversion, evasion, or sidetrack on that subject alone (I've not even mentioned the "wall of text" issues). I'm confident that Fran will be able to debate in a straightforward and open manner in this thread, answering questions in a simple and direct manner. In that hope, I look forward to his response to the question I posed just above Bam's post.

Wow... this is all interesting. I never even knew that you withdrew from our debate!!! This must have happened AFTER I withdrew first. Wow. So then if you withdrew, can I assume that you never did respond to my first rebuttal in our debate? Or did you withdraw AFTER your response? And if you did respond, where is it?

I ask because I made the remark that I had no original ideas of my own (which I don't. I'm not arrogant enough to assume otherwise) BEFORE I WITHDREW AND BEFORE YOU WROTE ANY RESPONSE. So if you did withdraw because of the above statement of mine (about not having any original ideas of my own), then it must have happened BEFORE any response you had to my first rebuttal. If you did respond, then that means you did not let the fact that I admit that I have no original ideas of my own stop you from responding.. which calls into question the reason you are now giving for your withdrawal.

And I never called your honesty into question. Even though yiou said I lied, which I didn't, I don't call your honesty into question because I happen to think you are merely misinformed or uninformed, and not deliberately lying.

As I say, I never called your honesty into question. Where can you infer that from? I never said you were a liar. I never said you were dishonest. And I still don't. I do think however that you are sometimes misinformed or that you don't always get the facts straight... not out of deliberation, but from human error.

That is what happened to me. I honestly thought you had said something, and I said so. To lie or be dishonest is to say that I knew you didn't say something, but said you said it anyway. Can't you see this?

You posted your formal rebuttal - that included Fermi's paradox.At around this point, you admitted you had no ideas of your own. I responded to that, and asked a question for clarification. I was considering withdrawing, but wanted to see if you would give a straight answer.You responded to my question, but did NOT give a straight answer.I therefore formally withdrew. And I took the time and effort to explain why, and to post it online, so that you would know I had withdrawn.

From what you say, you just decided to leave without letting anyone know - including the two people you were engaging with in debate. At very best, that is rude.

And I never called your honesty into question. Even though yiou said I lied, which I didn't, I don't call your honesty into question because I happen to think you are merely misinformed or uninformed, and not deliberately lying.

As I say, I never called your honesty into question. Where can you infer that from? I never said you were a liar. I never said you were dishonest. And I still don't. I do think however that you are sometimes misinformed or that you don't always get the facts straight... not out of deliberation, but from human error.

You claimed I said that I would only continue the debate by PM.I denied this, and posted the link where I said I would continue in seperate thread. Others did likewise.You continued to claim I said that I would only continue the debate by PM.I asked you to provide evidence. You did not. You continued to claim I said that I would only continue the debate by PM.When finally cornered by the Mods, you admitted that you were mistaken.

THAT was where you called my honesty into question - by claiming, REPEATEDLY, that I had said something I did not. By persisting to claim it when shown that you had misunderstood my post. By persisting to claim it, despite denials, without bothering to check your facts.

Maybe you ain't lying Fran. But you certainly show a remarkable ability to shield yourself from the truth and keep posting "misunderstandings" long after you have been shown clear evidence to the contrary.

Including here: I've shown you, three times now, where you continued the debate AFTER your first rebuttal. Where you continued the debate AFTER I had responded, and AFTER you had come back to me. Yet you have still NOT withdrawn your twice-made statement in this thread that:

"I still have no idea what response, if any, you might have made to my first rebuttel."

I've posted the damn thing, and your response, that PROVES that sentence is incorrect. Yet you have still not withdrawn it.

To my mind, you are a liar. Moreover, you are by your own admission someone who will remove themselves from a debate without bothering to let anyone know you are going - just run away and leave the other person hanging.

Frankly, you ain't someone I want to deal with any more. I'm putting all this down so no-one will be suckered into engaging with someone as ill-mannered and shifty as you have shown yourself to be. So you are quite clear, I will not respond to you again in this thread. I will do my best not to engage with you elsewhere.

But I will make it quite clear, in every thread I see you join, how you acted in the past, so that nobody else wastes their time on someone who makes so many "mistakes" about what has happened, has no thoughts of their own, and who will run away without comment when they start to lose.

There is no need for the Mods to shift this discussion to another thread since from your own words, it is clear that neither you nor I have any desire to continue with this.

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You posted your formal rebuttal - that included Fermi's paradox.At around this point, you admitted you had no ideas of your own. I responded to that, and asked a question for clarification. I was considering withdrawing, but wanted to see if you would give a straight answer.

I don't know what thread you are speaking of. I never saw your rebuttal or your question for clarification because I withdrew before I saw either. I had included Fermi's paradox in multiple posts of mine, so maybe that is where the confusion lies.

The last thing i remember you saying was you telling the rest of us that you were going to take a few days off to write a response to my rebuttal. I left almost immediately after that and without writing anything further. If I recall correctly, this was immediately after kcrady tried to help you with some answers to my rebuttal... but he then deferred the Fermi paradox to you and did not give an answer.

If i recall, this was in the Debate rooms.. .and from what I can see, all the debates and disucssion we were having at that time about this subject has been deleted. I cannot even see it in the archives. The last posts I was reading (and to what i'm referring to) were in the debate rooms, not in the general discussion area... which is where your link appears to take us to.

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You responded to my question, but did NOT give a straight answer.I therefore formally withdrew. And I took the time and effort to explain why, and to post it online, so that you would know I had withdrawn.

I never read your withdrawal or your questions. I had apparantly left before any of this. As I said, the last posts i read and responded to (towards you and Kcrady) were in the debate rooms. And those are apparantly deleted and were not saved in the archive section.

So I never knew you withdrew. And like I said before, the last I remember reading what you wrote was when you told everyone that you were going to take some time to respond to my rebuttal... but that you weren't going to take weeks like I did.

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From what you say, you just decided to leave without letting anyone know - including the two people you were engaging with in debate. At very best, that is rude.

It might have been rude, but I was fed up with the moderators. I thought about writing to you and Kcrady personaly and asking if you guys wanted to continue in personal email... but I was so disheartened and frustrated and a bit angry with the way the moderators were handling things that I just threw my hands up and left.

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FranAnd I never called your honesty into question. Even though yiou said I lied, which I didn't, I don't call your honesty into question because I happen to think you are merely misinformed or uninformed, and not deliberately lying.

As I say, I never called your honesty into question. Where can you infer that from? I never said you were a liar. I never said you were dishonest. And I still don't. I do think however that you are sometimes misinformed or that you don't always get the facts straight... not out of deliberation, but from human error.

AnfauglirYou claimed I said that I would only continue the debate by PM.I denied this, and posted the link where I said I would continue in seperate thread. Others did likewise.You continued to claim I said that I would only continue the debate by PM.I asked you to provide evidence. You did not. You continued to claim I said that I would only continue the debate by PM.When finally cornered by the Mods, you admitted that you were mistaken.

THAT was where you called my honesty into question - by claiming, REPEATEDLY, that I had said something I did not. By persisting to claim it when shown that you had misunderstood my post. By persisting to claim it, despite denials, without bothering to check your facts.

This is not an example of lying. The Mods never pressured me into anything. It was your persistence... not anything said by the Mods... that finally convinced me to look at the email you sent me. It was then that I noticed you never sent one, and it was that error which explained why I was mistaken. No one ever showed how I misunderstood your post... i found out by finally rereading the suppossed email you had sent me. And I only did that because I knew you were basically and honest person and so I began to think I had made a mistake. The Mods... nor anyone else in here cornered me or influenced me or forced me to do anything.

It was your persistence and my opinion of you which finally convinced me to reexamine my position.

I made a mistake and I owned up to it.

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Maybe you ain't lying Fran. But you certainly show a remarkable ability to shield yourself from the truth and keep posting "misunderstandings" long after you have been shown clear evidence to the contrary.

I was never shown anything, it was your persistence and my opinion of you which convinced me that I might have made a mistake. It was only then that i reread your email to me. Until then, I was convinced that my memory was correct.

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Including here: I've shown you, three times now, where you continued the debate AFTER your first rebuttal. Where you continued the debate AFTER I had responded, and AFTER you had come back to me. Yet you have still NOT withdrawn your twice-made statement in this thread that:

"I still have no idea what response, if any, you might have made to my first rebuttel."

I've posted the damn thing, and your response, that PROVES that sentence is incorrect. Yet you have still not withdrawn it.

I still have no idea what response, if any, you might have made to my first rebuttal. I have not looked. All I did was see if the link you gave went to the Debate rooms or the Debate archives. Your link did neither.. and it was in the debate rooms that i made my first rebuttal to which I keep refering to.

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To my mind, you are a liar. Moreover, you are by your own admission someone who will remove themselves from a debate without bothering to let anyone know you are going - just run away and leave the other person hanging.

I'm not a liar, and the fact you keep saying it shows you don't understand what the word means.

As for leaving, i already explained why.

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Frankly, you ain't someone I want to deal with any more. I'm putting all this down so no-one will be suckered into engaging with someone as ill-mannered and shifty as you have shown yourself to be. So you are quite clear, I will not respond to you again in this thread. I will do my best not to engage with you elsewhere.

I've never been shifty or dishonest or disengious or a liar. And since neither you nor I will say anymore on this matter, then there is no need for the moderators to move this discussion to another thread since neither of us will be saying anything more.

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But I will make it quite clear, in every thread I see you join, how you acted in the past, so that nobody else wastes their time on someone who makes so many "mistakes" about what has happened, has no thoughts of their own, and who will run away without comment when they start to lose.

This only shows the important fact that personal prejudices can skew and distort the facts. I could not have started to lose because the debate never began with kcrady or you to begin with.

How can I begin to lose when i NEVER saw your response in the first place? I thought my first rebuttal (and the last it turns out) was very good and I was anxious to see what your reply would be. I never saw your reply. All I saw was you saying that you were going to take a few days off to respond... but your promised everyone that you would not take weeks to respond as you say I did. That's the last thing I remember reading from you. And this was in the Debate rooms as I remember.

As for your clear mission that in every thread You see me join, you will tell everyone how I acted in the past... please, by all means, do so. I am not ashamed of anything I've done in the past. If i made a mistake, i always apologized. I never called anyone a liar.. as you have called me. I never called anyone dishonest... as you have called me.

I expect to be persecuted as a Christian. It comes with the territory. Jesus said we would be. Instead of making me cower, I embrace it as as a privilege. Truth has a price. And for Christians, the price is persecution.

I expect to be persecuted as a Christian. It comes with the territory. Jesus said we would be. Instead of making me cower, I embrace it as as a privilege. Truth has a price. And for Christians, the price is persecution.

Fran

Wow. I don't even know you, and this wasn't addressed to me, but I almost LOL'd my sprite all over my monitor. I've never heard anyone use this pure bullshit in a discussion before!

The truth is simple; all gods are imaginary, man-made entities. No god has ever been shown in any way to actually exist, other than inside the minds of deluded and fearful humans throughout history. For evidence of this, name one god you believe in that is not from The Bible.

Persecuted; wtf does that even mean? I don't even have to read up on this old debate you are discussing, because this particular lie you just trotted out say's it all. You are being dishonest, and you truly don't seem to care about the truth at all.

I expect to be persecuted as a Christian. It comes with the territory. Jesus said we would be. Instead of making me cower, I embrace it as as a privilege. Truth has a price. And for Christians, the price is persecution.

Fran

Wow. I don't even know you, and this wasn't addressed to me, but I almost LOL'd my sprite all over my monitor. I've never heard anyone use this pure bullshit in a discussion before!

What right have you to judge fran's statements as bullshit? If fran embraces persecution for his lil' security blanket, that's his weird deal, but that doesn't mean that it's bullshit that he feels this way.

The truth is simple; all gods are imaginary, man-made entities. No god has ever been shown in any way to actually exist, other than inside the minds of deluded and fearful humans throughout history. For evidence of this, name one god you believe in that is not from The Bible.

The "evidence" you suggest that fran collect is not "evidence." You made the positive claim; you prove it.

I expect to be persecuted as a Christian. It comes with the territory. Jesus said we would be. Instead of making me cower, I embrace it as as a privilege. Truth has a price. And for Christians, the price is persecution.

Fran

Wow. I don't even know you, and this wasn't addressed to me, but I almost LOL'd my sprite all over my monitor. I've never heard anyone use this pure bullshit in a discussion before!

What right have you to judge fran's statements as bullshit? If fran embraces persecution for his lil' security blanket, that's his weird deal, but that doesn't mean that it's bullshit that he feels this way.

The truth is simple; all gods are imaginary, man-made entities. No god has ever been shown in any way to actually exist, other than inside the minds of deluded and fearful humans throughout history. For evidence of this, name one god you believe in that is not from The Bible.

The "evidence" you suggest that fran collect is not "evidence." You made the positive claim; you prove it.

Fran is free to feel any way he wants, I was responding to the idea that "Christians are persecuted", which is pure bullshit. No need to defend it as far as I can tell...

I have not made a positive truth claim at all - all gods are imaginary is a response to all original positive claims of all gods ever thought to exist as real. I don't expect Fran to even care about my reply, so there is no need to defend Fran's delusion as though I am somehow in error...

I have not made a positive truth claim at all - all gods are imaginary is a response to all original positive claims of all gods ever thought to exist as real.

If neither of us have ever seen kcrady's modes of transportation and i say that he has a motorcycle and you say that the motorcycle is imaginary we're both making positive claims. The fact that you're responding to my claim makes no difference at all to your obligation to demonstrate the truth of your claim. A better reply on your part would be to say that you have no idea whether k has a motorcycle or not. Do you understand?

Fran is in the ER now for not answering my posts and PM I sent him the last time he chose to disappear from the forum. Until it's all cleared, up you can find him in the ER.

Since I posted my apologies for derailing the original thread, I have deliberately skipped any and all postings by Fran. I don't believe he is worth wasting my time on, and I have no intention of engaging with him or even reading what he posts. I've therefore got no intention of taking part in his ER process.

If an Admin or Mod needs me to answer anything specific (seeing as it's related apparently to our original debate), that's fine, let me know. But if not I have no intention of taking part in his ER process, as I've run out of empathy to try to help him stay on these boards. I have enough hassles in my life at the moment without voluntarily taking on another I think is a lost cause.

Thank you for the offer, I may ask you for information or for your perception of Fran's attitude toward the debates, but you won't have to engage in any back and forth with him, because I don't want this to drag out endlessly.

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But if not I have no intention of taking part in his ER process, as I've run out of empathy to try to help him stay on these boards. I have enough hassles in my life at the moment without voluntarily taking on another I think is a lost cause.

I have enough hassles too, but leaving the debates without so much as a simple polite notice -

"I must leave due to xxx issue, but will return"

and then to avoid answering the PM I sent him when he left, is just not acceptable in my book. Too many good people put too much time into the debates. In order for him to return to the forum, me must suffer me and anyone else who cares to vent their frustration at his attitude towards the debates he left hanging and the revelation that he didn't have a single original thought in the debates.